2019 Annual Report of the Academy of European Law ( ERA)

Annual Report

2019

01

ERA Annual Report 2019

T

he Academy of European Law (ERA) is a non-profit public foundation based in Trier, Germany which is supported by the EU and whose patrons include the 27 Member States and the UK. Our mission is to provide practitioners of law – judges, prosecutors, notaries and lawyers in private practice, business or public administration – with training and a forum for debate on EU law. At our headquarters in Trier and locations across Europe, as well as online, we provide high-quality conferences and training supported by top speakers across numerous practice areas.

This year’s report celebrates the successes of 2019 whilst introducing a new era, including the appointment of a new Board of Trustees, a critical change to the governance structure and a decision on the Director of ERA from January 2021.

CONTENTS Didier Reynders EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR JUSTICE

06

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Pauliine Koskelo

08

INTERVIEW Wolfgang Heusel DIRECTOR OF THE ACADEMY

10

ERA IN NUMBERS

18

CONFERENCES AND LEGAL POLICY DEBATE

24

PRACTICAL TRAINING COURSES AND WORKSHOPS

28

TRAINING MATERIALS

36

ERA FORUM

40

DISTANCE LEARNING

41

SCHOLARSHIPS

43

ERA CONFERENCE CENTRE

44

THE TEAM

46

THE BOARDS

52

COOPERATION PARTNERS

58

FRIENDS OF ERA

61

DIDIER REYNDERS EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR JUSTICE

06

Preface

T

he work of legal practitioners is key to the well-functioning of the EU justice area, and quality training is essential for their work. That is why ERA’s work of providing training for legal practitioners for nearly three decades has been of tremendous value. Legal practitioners also play an important role when it comes to promoting and upholding the rule of law, which is one of the building blocks upon which the European Union is founded.

Respect for the rule of law is a prerequisite for protecting all other values, and it is crucial for the effective application of EU law and for mutual trust between Member States and their judicial authorities. The recent case law of the Court of Justice has further underlined the crucial importance of the rule of law for the European Union. In fact, respect for the rule of law in Member States is a condition for the very functioning of the European Union itself.

“Civil society, media, Member States education systems and of course academia can all play an important role to ensure a place for the rule of law in public debate and educational curricula.”

In recent years, we have witnessed concerns regarding respect for the rule of law emerging in some Member States. This shows that the rule of law cannot be taken for granted. The Commission has therefore decided to establish a comprehensive European Rule of Law Mechanism, in addition to existing instruments in the EU’s rule of law toolbox. The Commission will present the first annual Rule of Law Report, covering all Member States, in the second half of 2020.

In a time where the rule of law is under pressure, it is of the highest importance to strengthen the rule of law culture among the general public and to promote a better knowledge of the requirements of EU law and European standards. Civil society, media, Member States’ education systems and of course academia can all play an important role to ensure a place for the rule of law in public debate and educational curricula. This is why it is crucial that ERA continue its mission, which is important not only for legal practitioners but for all of society. EU citizens rely on the expertise of those working in the legal profession to enforce their rights effectively, under the control of independent and impartial courts.

The Commission will also reinforce the Security Union. To face the increasingly complex threats that emerged in recent years, judicial cooperation must be strengthened. This means, for example, reinforcing Eurojust as a facilitator of cross-border proceedings, increasing the secure exchange of electronic evidence and ensuring that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) starts working as soon as possible.

Third, I will ensure the promotion of consumer rights, through the adoption of the Representative Actions Directive and other initiatives under the Consumer Agenda. Last but not least, we must keep pace with digitalisation, to constantly improve the efficiency of our justice systems.

In order to succeed in all those fields, judicial training is an essential tool. It contributes to improve the correct application of EU law, mutual trust in cross-border judicial proceedings, and the respect of the rule of law in the EU. It is also essential to increase justice professionals’ knowledge about key elements of the rule of law. The rule of law training guide and related handbook funded in 2019 by the European Commission should be re-used in national and EU-level training activities and widely disseminated among justice professionals.

The current European judicial training strategy has borne many fruits, by contributing to the increasing quality of training activities, with best practices collected, disseminated and applied, and capacity of networks and training providers improved. ERA has contributed significantly to these achievements. As the Commission will seek to secure the continuation of achievements and address new challenges in a new 2020-2027 strategy, it will need ERA, just like all other stakeholders, to make it a success!

07

MESSAGE FROM PAULIINE KOSKELO CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

T

he past year 2019 marks the end of my tenure as ERA Trustee (since 2008) and as Chair of the Board of Trustees (since 2011). During this time, I have been able to follow what has been a truly remarkable development in the activities of this precious institution. It has been a great pleasure, thanks to the high level of professional and personal qualities among all those “My contacts who have been involved in this common European enterprise.

with ERA go back nearly 25 years.”

EU law can only function if those who should know it actually do know it. As EU law has expanded in all dimensions, this is a tall order. The contribution of ERA to the training of legal professionals coming from all corners of Europe and working in various key functions is, and will continue to be, essential. The same is true regarding its role as a forum for debate and exchange on current issues and challenges of EU law.

I would once more like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the members of the staff and the management for their outstanding work. I would also like to thank my fellow trustees for all their input and support.

Many have helped ERA on its way over a long time.

I take the opportunity to pay special tribute to Wolfgang Heusel, who as the long-serving Director, and Director for Programmes before that, has paid a crucial role during all these years. Without Wolfgang’s untiring dedication, commitment and leadership, ERA would certainly not have become what it is today.

Many people have contributed to the success but Wolfgang has, in many ways, been the “Baumeister” of ERA in its development so far. We owe a great deal to his excellence. Thank you for everything you have done for ERA, and for your friendship! With the end of your service as Director approaching, you can be very proud of the achievements.

Unfortunately, the current state of the European Union as such is not so positive. Over the last decade, grave problems have emerged within the union regarding its most fundamental values and principles, as respect for the rule of law in some Member States has been undermined. The European Union as a community of law and values is at serious risk, and its ability to respond and to avoid further degradation is subject to doubt. Hopefully, the EU can still find ways to save itself, and ERA can have a good and bright future in fulfilling its mission.

08

09

Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg

Pauliine KOSKELO

INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR

1.

In 2019, ERA renewed its Board of Trustees

(“Kuratorium”) for the term 2020-2023. What are the key features of the new Board, and what do you consider the main achievements of its predecessor?

E

RA’s so-called Board of Trustees, which is essentially an advisory board providing guidance on the training needs of our target groups (the legal professions), top level expertise on a variety of EU law areas and key contacts to the main actors in European law and training is appointed for a term of four years. Normally appointment to the Board is renewable once; there is however also a category of life-time appointees whom we refer to as “honorary trustees” and who were instrumental in achieving important objectives in certain phases of ERA’s development. The latter category includes a former judge of the European Court of Justice (Sir David Edward), former senior officials of the EU’s three political institutions (Francesco de Angelis, Charles Elsen, Gregorio Garzón Clariana) and two former presidents of the CCBE (Hans-Jürgen Hellwig and Heinz Weil). Last year, former EP Vice President Diana Wallis and the long-serving chairwoman of the Board Pauliine Koskelo, now a judge of the European Court of Human Rights, were also appointed honorary trustees for life.

Advisers on strategy and representatives of EU institutions

Besides the honorary members, we identify three categories of trustees: Advisers on strategy and representatives of EU institutions (10), Representatives of target groups and partner institutions (17) and Expert advisers (33). Of these 60 regular members, 36 have been appointed for the first time to the new Board, which was the largest renewal of the Board ever. Some of the new members, in particular those representing EU or partner institutions, are succeeding their colleagues which were also their predecessors in their institutional function. Some of these trustees however represent institutions which so far were never represented on the Board, such as three EU agencies supervising the market for financial services (the ECB, EBA and ESMA) or the European Public Prosecutor in person, Laura Codruța Kövesi. Among the expert advisers, a high number of practicing lawyers with an impressive variety of expertise have been appointed for the first time, and also business is very well represented through a record number of company lawyers. We are very much looking forward to working with the new Board and its members, even if our plans to launch first Board activities in early 2020 have unfortunately been thwarted by the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Expert advisers

10

( 10 )

Representatives of target groups and partner institutions

( 17 )

( 33 )

“My heartfelt thanks go to all trustees who, over many years, have helped build our institute as it stands today.”

Looking back at the achievements of the previous Board, I first wish to pay a tribute to all outgoing members for their tremendous contribution to ERA’s work and success over the past four years or more; in fact many former members had served for more than one term. The last Board was the first to work in a new framework: The category of members appointed to represent EU Member States and candidate countries was abolished; a ceiling of 60 ordinary members was introduced; and the principle of limiting the number of terms to a maximum of two full terms started to apply. We were less successful with the introduction of new and hopefully more efficient working methods; the increased use of small advisory groups outside plenary meetings was hardly practiced; external experts were not associated with the work of specific advisory groups, probably as the expertise available was considered sufficient; and plenary meetings continued to be held in every year of the past term as the wish to convene annually in pleno prevailed. But the breakout meetings of the specialised advisory groups in the framework of the annual plenaries proved to be ever more crucial for ERA’s conference planning and the regular meetings of the Business Strategy Committee and the presidium never failed to provide valuable guidance not least for the development of ERA’s next Development Strategy 2021-2027.

My heartfelt thanks go to all trustees who, over many years, have helped build our institute as it stands today. Most strongly I feel indebted to Pauliine Koskelo, who has been a very good and close friend since ERA’s early days when we first met in the nineties to discuss a project on European insolvency law on which she had worked as a senior official of the Finnish Ministry of justice. When we met, Pauliine had just joined the EIB in Luxembourg from where after five years she returned to Helsinki as a Justice of the Supreme Court in 2000. In 2002/2003, she helped persuade the Finnish authorities to make Finland a formal patron of ERA. From 2005 on, she was President of the Supreme Court and accepted my invitation to join the Board of Trustees as of 2008. Two years later, she was elected chairwoman of the Board and served for almost ten years in this position. As president of the trustees, she accompanied ERA’s growth and further maturing over the last decade with firm encouragement, untiring support and unconditional affection. I am relieved to know that as an honorary trustee she will remain “on board”.

A n n u a l

Wolfgang Heusel,

DIRECTOR OF THE ACADEMY

R e p o r t 2 0 1 9

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2.

For many years, ERA has been recipient of an

operating grant under the Jean Monnet programme which was launched in 1989, 30 years ago.

What was ERA’s contribution to the programme’s 30th anniversary?

E

RA was established in 1992 following an initiative of the European Parliament, and it was Parliament that ensured the funding of ERA’s operations by creating a specific budget line alongside those of other European educational institutes such as the European University Institute and the College of Europe. When it became obvious that the provision of operating grants required an additional legal basis, such basis was created in 2004 by a Decision of Parliament and Council and replicated for the subsequent Financial Frameworks 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 as part of the Jean Monnet activities, with an express reference to ERA as an “institute pursuing an aim of European interest”. Hence for many years Jean Monnet has been the programme providing an important part of the financial basis for ERA’s activities, and in principle this should continue also in the next MFF 2021-2027.

ERA hence owes a huge part of its success to the Jean Monnet Programme and was delighted to contribute to the Programme’s 30th anniversary year. ERA’s main contribution consisted in the organisation of a one-day conference entitled European Law Protecting our Common Values on 16 October 2019 in Brussels. The event hosted by the House of European History was opened

by Commissioner Věra Jourová, incoming Vice President for Values and Transparency, who praised ERA’s contribution to strengthening the rule of law in the European area of justice and offered some insights into the priorities of the incoming Commission in this regard.

After a thorough analysis of the concept of “European values” by professor Armin von Bogdandy (Heidelberg), successive panels took a closer look at how European law defends these values against both external and internal threats and addressed the potential conflict between the values protected by EU law on the one hand and national constitutional law on the other. The programme featured top level speakers such as EP Vice President Katarina Barley, Diana Wallis, Paul Nemitz (European Commission), Judge Pauliine Koskelo (ECtHR), Justice Aileen Donnelly from the Irish Court of Appeal, Max Steinbeis (editor of Verfassungsblog), former Jurisconsulte of the Council Hubert Legal, former judge of the ECJ Christiaan Timmermans and former Vice President of the Bundesverfassungsgericht Ferdinand Kirchhof.

12

3.

While ERA celebrated its 25th anniversary in

2017, three major ERA partners commemorated quite different anniversaries in 2019.

To which extent was ERA involved in these festivities?

I

(NIJ) ― SOFIA

National Institute of Justice

(ENM) ― BORDEAUX

Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature

t looks as if it were pure coincidence, but it is true that three judicial schools which have been close cooperation partners for ERA in the framework of the European Judicial Training Network, and which together with ERA were re-elected to the EJTN Steering Committee in June 2019, celebrated their anniversaries in 2019: the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature (ENM) in Bordeaux turned 60, the Centro de Estudos Judiciários (CEJ) in Lisbon 40 and the Националeн институт на правосъдието (National Institute of Justice – NIJ) in Sofia completed 15 years since its establishment. All of them invited ERA to address the audiences of their commemorative events and I enjoyed the honour and privilege to represent ERA at all three occasions.

To celebrate its 60th anniversary, the ENM organised a colloquium in Bordeaux on 23-24 May entitled “Judicial training: a challenge for democracy” consisting of three panel discussions which examined the historic didactical approach of the school as well as its future challenges by digitalisation and AI; all of this against a political background which even questioned the very existence of the school. As the only non-French speaker at the conference I participated in the second panel, together with ENM director Olivier Leurent and representatives of the French Bar and academia, looking at current challenges for the training of lawyers in general and discussing the importance of training for an effective independence of the judiciary, which is a guarantor of unbiased democratic procedures, and of an interprofessional and pan-European exchange.

The Portuguese Judicial School under Director João Manuel da Silva Miguel held its jubilee conference on “The training of magistrates – tendencies and perspectives” on 10 and 11 October in Lisbon, which featured contributions by representatives of the domestic judiciary, academia and politics. International speakers included a representative of the European Commission, Director Olivier Leurent of the French ENM and me, allowing me to deliver a more fundamental speech on law, justice and the judiciary. Being invited to this event was particularly moving for me, as my first private visit to Lisbon goes back to the year 1979 when CEJ was founded and I then spent a three-month internship at the Portuguese-German chamber of commerce there in 1983, two years before Portugal’s accession to the EC. Last not least, the Bulgarian National Institute for Justice celebrated its 15th anniversary on 21 October in Sofia with a conference entitled “25 years judicial training in Bulgaria – 15 years National Institute of Justice”. The event saw a panel discussion chaired by Director Miglena Tacheva with her two predecessors. Presentations from an international perspective were delivered by Markus Brückner, Secretary General elect of the EJTN, and myself, highlighting the relevance of EU law for the national judiciary and the need for a pan-European training. Here again our host added a memorable element to this visit by introducing us to the last tsar (1943-1946) and later Prime minister (2001-2005) of Bulgaria, Simeon Sakskoburggotski.

Finally let me add that 2019 also saw the publication of the contributions to ERA’s 2017 jubilee congress “The authority of EU law – do we still believe in it?” (Springer), with papers by eminent European law experts and practitioners including the presidents of the Court of Justice and the General Court of the EU.

13

4.

At its meeting in November 2019, the ERA

Governing Board adopted some crucial strategic decisions for ERA’s future. Why are they strategically relevant?

T

he first fundamental decision adopted by the Board concerns ERA’s legal status as an autonomous public foundation. This is the form which the original founders – Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate and the city of Trier – chose in June 1992 to provide the institute not only with legal personality but also with the potential to grow both in patrons – all Member States were invited to join – and in activities. Most importantly, the legal form of a non-profit foundation was perfect to equip the institute with the necessary autonomy to conceive its own development strategy and a programme exclusively focused on its mandate, i.e. improving the efficient application and enforcement of European law through training knowledge and skills of law professionals, and providing them with a Europe-wide forum for exchange and networking.

However, given the uncertain funding perspectives of the institute in 1992 and the absence of other Member States in its starting phase, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in setting up the Foundation pledged “in accordance with the budget in force, to cover the costs of the Foundation insofar as they are not covered by other income”. This pledge was expressed in a Letter of Comfort which became a genuine part of the founding act. In return for this fundamentally unlimited funding pledge, the Foundation Statute granted Rhineland-Palatinate special supervisory rights over the Foundation’s expenditure and a second “special” representative on the Governing Board. The Statute foresaw that any economic or staffing plans to be adopted by the Foundation would require the approval of this special representative.

This peculiar position of Rhineland-Palatinate combining a potentially strong financial liability with certain statutory privileges helped ERA to get through its difficult pioneer years but never strained its development as a genuine European training institute. While until the end of the current year and since 1992, Rhineland-Palatinate very generously will have paid ERA an accumulated operating grant of €23.5 million and “From a fledgling project, the institute has invested a similar amount in the Academy’s conference centre in Trier, developed into a leading provider of EU law the state was never called to cover any unforeseen contingent liabilities as set out in the comfort letter and it never hampered any strategic training and debate.” decision for ERA’s development or intervened in programme planning.

Compared with June 1992, ERA’s position has fundamentally changed. From a fledgling project, the institute has developed into a leading provider of EU law training and debate, incorporating all present and past EU Member States and expressly named as an institution “pursuing an aim of European interest” by the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. Given this consolidation of the Foundation, there is no longer a need for Rhineland-Palatinate to undertake a legal obligation to assume costs not otherwise covered, and the particular prerogatives afforded to the State in the Foundation Statute no longer sit well politically with the European character of the Foundation. Following my proposal, the Governing Board hence decided to release RhinelandPalatinate from any further financial liability as a founding donor and to simultaneously abolish its reserved rights under the Statute so that the State is now placed on the same legal footing as all other patrons.

14

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Jean -P Fu hilipp

5.

The Board’s second strategic decision with far-reaching impact was the nomination of JeanPhilippe Rageade, our Programme Director, to succeed me as Director as of 1 January 2021. His nomination a good year before taking up office will allow for an orderly and smooth transition and provides sufficient time to recruit a qualified successor as Programme Director. I am particularly happy with this decision, as Jean-Philippe meets the requirements for the position at all levels, and both his many years of committed work at ERA and the experience and contacts he has acquired in the course of his work give rise to the expectation that once appointed Director he will continue to use these for the benefit of ERA and its staff. Like the Board, I place high trust in his abilities and qualities and will leave the institute without concern.

In 2019, ERA has worked on its new

development strategy for the term 2021-2027, which it will finalise and adopt in the course of 2020. In your view, what will be the most important challenges for ERA’s development in the years to come?

I

n normal times, my response to this question would list the usual uncertainties for which you have to cater – to secure funding, to offer activities based on a careful needs and demand analysis, to keep track with technical developments both as far as they offer new activity tools and as they present legal challenges; briefly, to make sure that in all respects ERA will stay “ahead of the curve”. All of this remains true: As the EU is preparing the adoption of a new Mid-term Financial Framework for 2021-27 and we are entering a new phase of cooperation with our seat state Rhineland-Palatinate, it will be vital to ensure continuity in public funding for ERA. This should also allow to expand our activities to address new target groups, test new forms of adult education, address new legal challenges such as the emergence of an ever stronger presence of artificial intelligence (AI) in our private and professional lives including in the application of the law itself or, at an institutional level, the search of the European Union for strengthening its democratic basis and structure (the “Conference on the Future of Europe”). To achieve this, ERA will continue to depend on a highly qualified, motivated and committed staff.

15

But while I am writing these lines, we are going through the historic Corona pandemic lockdown which has paralysed economic and social life in all EU Member States. The pandemic has forced ERA to stop almost all of its face-to-face activities from mid-March until the summer break, but nobody can tell today whether in September 2020 we will be back to business as usual.

Events which cannot take place now because of the lockdown have either been postponed or, exceptionally, cancelled; most of them will be offered as streams or webinars only, but the readiness of the market to accept this new online-only concept still needs to be tested. As a consequence, ERA is working short-time in April and May, and while it is certain that income from registration fees will decrease considerably, the financial impact of the crisis on ERA remains to be seen.

The challenges we would have to face in “normal” times are hence likely to appear in an aggravated, accelerated or extended shape. While EU funding for ERA was always dependant on political agreement on the overall MFF and the envelope allocated to the Erasmus+ and the Justice Programmes, this pending agreement is now further at risk given the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic and the need to set up a programme to restore the economy. While the lockdown is certain to end at some stage, it is impossible to predict when face-to-face events can be organised anew and whether there will be any appetite (and time and money) to attend them. The need for an increased use of distance-learning methods is certainly offering a chance, but will it also reduce law professionals’ zeal and interest to engage in face-to-face training? If, as so many say, life (or Europe) after the pandemic will not be the same as before, what will be ERA’s life after the pandemic? This will be a challenge nobody could anticipate, but I am confident that ERA will be able to cope with.

6.

2020 will be your last year as Director of ERA, the 21st since your first appointment as from January 2000. What are your thoughts when looking back?

M

y first thought is that these years have been an incredible and intense experience, an unexpected adventure, and that I am immensely grateful for the chance of having been entrusted with this responsibility over so many years. I was first involved in the project to create the Academy in 1991 when I was a young judge seconded to the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Justice in Mainz. The project had been repeatedly called for by the European Parliament, but it could only be launched locally by a joint initiative of the governments of Luxembourg and Rhineland-Palatinate. Its implementation was then left to the Minister of justice of the latter, Peter Caesar, who formed a team in 1991 to present the project to a European public of which it was yet unclear of whom it should consist and how it could be reached. The preparation of this first event to launch the Academy, which took the form of a major conference in November 1991 demonstrating the hoped-for achievements of this new initiative – discussing important issues of European law with outstanding law practitioners from EU (EC) institutions, business, judiciary and legal practice from old and new Member States, and facilitating cross-border encounter and exchange – was perceived as a huge success and led to the creation of the ERA Foundation in June 1992, six months before the envisaged completion of the Single Market.

16

My involvement in this founding phase, which in 1992 included setting up first contacts with former socialist countries which at the time did not even enjoy the official status of candidates for membership, made me accept the invitation to join the still very small ERA team in Trier in January 1993. The years until 1999, when I served as Programme Director, were true pioneer years and meant that the institute had to be built from scratch – staff, programme, bodies, contacts, networks, with the help of dedicated friends and the financial support provided by the European Parliament. It meant that we had to build trust in old and new Member States, trust in our capacities, in the quality of our work, in our motivation to serve the European good and not any national interests, which was not obvious given that the institute was new and unknown and that its patrons until 2000 were just Germany, the German states and Luxembourg.

But the proof that we managed was that in 2000, shortly after my appointment as Director, Ireland was the first further Member State to join, and in a very long, sometimes slow and cumbersome process all other 25 EU Member States followed suit, from Poland in 2001 to Estonia in 2018.

The breadth of its institutional basis and of its rich network of partner institutions and experts throughout Europe is certainly one of the strengths of ERA today. Another is the quality of its services and I feel sincerely committed to all my colleagues past and present who have been involved in building and maintaining this quality standard. The history of ERA, its origins and development is part of the history of European integration in the last 30 years. Being part of it has taught me a lot about European and national politics and interaction. To write this history some day might be another rewarding challenge for those who have lived it.

1991

“I was first involved in the project to create the Academy in 1991 when I was a young judge seconded to the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Justice in Mainz.”

17

ERA IN NUMBERS PROFESSION OF FACE-TO-FACE PARTICIPANTS 5,6%

OPEN EVENTS

2,9%

EU FUNDED EVENTS

1,5%

33 ,1 %

18

,9

28,0%

%

OTHER CONTRACT EVENTS

8,9% 10,0% 7,8%

14 8,8%

Judge Prosecutor Court staff Lawyer in private practice In-house counsel/Lawyer in business Notary EU official National civil servant Regulatory authority Police/Law enforcement Other civil servant Academic Association/Foundation/Charity Other

4,4% 1,7%

1,7% 9,8%

% 4,4

18

,2%

0,5%

0 5,

%

3,1%

18

4,6%

6,5%

% 12,8 5,9%

3,2% 2,5% 3,7%

13

,9%

3,6%

8,1 %

9,8%

12,7%

7,6%

9% 11,

,4%

4,3%

NUMBERS OF PARTICIPANTS/EVENTS

7 626

7 776

7 817

7 139

176 158

154 6 357

2015

2016

164

144

2017

2018

2019

2015

2016

PARTICIPANTS

2017

2019

2018

EVENTS

ERA ONLINE IN 2019

79,117

article downloads from ERA Forum

19,742

views on our YouTube channel

11,750 followers on LinkedIn

480

e-presentations in our e-learning catalogue

19

OPERATING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE 1,0% 3,1%

20 ,8 %

% 8 ,8

INCOME 3 2, 3

Total

30 ,1%

%

€ 8,423,946

3,8%

Participation fees and sales EU-funded projects Other project EU operating subsidy Rhineland-Palatinate subsidy ECC rental Other income

0,5% 3,0% 1,0%

% 8,0

51 , 8 %

EXPENDITURE

20

Personnel Direct costs of training events Administration Equipment ECC running costs Other costs

% 35,7

Total

€ 8,120,917

Improved capacity of ERA The Academy of European Law (ERA), the main EU-level training provider, increased its capacity to deliver high-quality training. […] In 2011, ERA organised 137 training events of various kinds for 2,469 justice professionals. In 2017, the total number of training activities organised by ERA increased to 158 (+15.3%) for 2,894 justice professionals (+17.2%). […]

For ERA, the EU contribution increased from ca €4.5 million in 2011 to just over €5 million in 2017, a rise of 10% . The number of justice professionals reached increased even more from 2,469 in 2011 to 2,894 in 2017.”

Evaluation of the 2011-2020 European judicial training strategy, European Commission, 25 October 2019

A n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 1 9

21

COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE OF PARTICIPANTS

Denmark 2.3 %

Germany 5.5 %

Netherlands 3.6 %

Belgium 6.5 %

Ireland 2.3 %

UK 1.9 %

Luxembourg 6.8 %

France 2.0 %

Austria 1.8 %

Slovenia 0.9 %

Portugal 3.1 %

Spain 3.3 %

Italy 3.0 %

Malta 1.6 %

22

2.2 % Finland

1.9 % Sweden

1.0 % Estonia

10.5 % Latvia

2.7 % Lithuania

EU Officials

7.5%

EFTA Countries

2.5%

3.1 % Czechia

Candidate & Potential Candidate Countries

0.8%

1.4 % Slovakia

Other (25) Countries

1.6%

5.1 % Poland

2.7 % Hungary

3.1 % Romania

4.4 % Bulgaria

1.4 % Croatia

2.9 % Greece

0.6 % Cyprus

23

A comprehensive programme of annual conferences

T

he challenge for ERA over the years has been to maintain diversity and breadth in its conference programme despite the ever-increasing number of areas in which EU law applies and despite the growing ‘Europeanisation’ of domestic law. Updating, deepening and enlarging the programme to match the growing training needs and expectations of legal practitioners have been a key element of our strategy.

Annual Conference on Anti-Money Laundering in the EU 2019

CONFERENCES AND LEGAL POLICY DEBATES

These highly technical events, aimed at specialists who wish to keep up-to-date in a specific field, can gather each year a high number of legal practitioners from all over Europe. This was the case in 2019 with the annual conferences on asylum law, consumer law, copyright law, criminal justice, family law, food law, media law, public procurement, financial supervision, pharmaceutical law, social security law, State aid law and VAT law which all gathered more than 50 delegates and experts each.

The most attended events of the series in 2019 were the annual conference on labour law with 102 participants from 22 countries, the annual conference on anti-money laundering in the EU with 109 practitioners from 21 countries, and the annual conference on data protection law with 128 legal practitioners from 29 countries. For all of these events, ERA regularly welcomes judges from the Court of Justice of the EU or the European Court of Human Rights, as well as high-ranking EU officials, as speakers.

24

Summer Course on Cross-Border Civil Litigation

Evidence of these programme developments can be seen in the range of annual conferences, where the main aim is to cover the most recent developments in a specific area of EU law.

This successful formula covered in 2019, inter alia, border management, company law and corporate governance, countering terrorism, environmental law, immigration law, insurance law, patent law, trade and investment law, trade mark and design, and – for the first time – white collar crime.

Events on very specific topics

C

omplementary to its annual conferences, ERA offers ad hoc events on various – sometimes very – specific topics. For example, 2019 saw ERA addressing sanctions in EU external relations for the first time. EU sanctions (restrictive measures) are one of the Union's tools to promote the objectives of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The Council imposes EU restrictive measures (such as freezing of funds and travel bans) through a CFSP Council decision adopted by unanimity, which is notified to the persons and entities targeted by it. These measures can then be challenged before the General Court of the EU. The conference provided participants with detailed knowledge on legal aspects of restrictive measures applied by the European Union, including the recent jurisprudence of the CJEU. Among the speakers ERA was honoured to welcome General Court Judges Dimitrios Gratsias, Mariyana Kancheva and Ignacio Ulloa Rubio, as well as many Court legal secretaries.

Another conference held in Trier explained the EU rules applicable to posted workers, that is, those employees who are sent by their employers to carry out a service in another EU Member State on a temporary basis. The event offered an integrated approach, covering the different relevant fields of law, such as labour law, social security law and tax law aspects. The recent developments on the EU legislation, the current challenges and other practical issues at stake were discussed by over 50 participants from twenty different countries.

In 2019 ERA continued its important work in the field of data protection, for example by offering over 70 data protection specialists and EU civil servants the necessary guidance on how to apply the new Regulation 2018/1725 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data. This new regulation had just entered into force late 2018. The conference focussed on the main changes in relation to the previous Regulation 45/2001, the obligations of the EU institutions as controller and processor of personal data and the new rights of data subjects. Also the supervision over data protection compliance in European institutions, bodies and agencies and remedies, liability and penalties in case of non-compliance were addressed. In the same vein, one should mention a major conference in cooperation with Europol's Data Protection Experts Network (EDEN), the Data Protection Unit at Europol and the Danish National Police entitled “Paradise Lost? Policing in the Age of Data Protection”. The event, which took place in Copenhagen, aimed to explore the practical implementation of EU data protection rules for the law enforcement. It was presented by cyber experts in the private and public sector, data protection professionals and representatives of the law enforcement and judiciary and attended by some 150 (mainly) law enforcement officials, data protection officers, members of EDEN, and lawyers in private practice.

“ERA was honoured to welcome General Court Judges Dimitrios Gratsias, Mariyana Kancheva and Ignacio Ulloa Rubio, as well as many Court legal secretaries.”

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Over 60 (mainly) lawyers in private practice and notaries from 23 countries attended a conference aiming at discussing key practical issues when planning cross-border successions. The event highlighted the crossover between the EU Succession Regulation and the new regime on (matrimonial) property for international couples, applicable since 29 January 2019. It also presented the CJEU case law after nearly four years of practical experience with the EU Succession Regulation. Other topics, such as drafting cross-border wills and planning digital legacy, cross-border inheritance tax, cross-border estate and the European Certificate of Succession (ECS) were also addressed.

As a last example to illustrate the variety of the programme, ERA organised a conference in May 2019 on regulatory trends in Distributed Ledger Technology, Cryptoassets and Security Tokens. Its aim was to analyse existing and proposed legal norms applicable to cryptoassets, security tokens, virtual currencies and their underlying technologies, notably distributed ledger technology (DLT) of which blockchain technology is the most prominent example. Apart from a comprehensive introduction to the subject matter, the conference was organised around three themes: a survey of DLT and cryptoasset regulation at the international, EU and national levels; central banking and supervisory priorities relating to virtual currencies; and anti-money laundering and cryptocurrencies. The conference, which targeted government officials, professionals in the payment services sectors, EU and national supervisory authorities, as well as lawyers in private practice dealing with banking and virtual currencies, was very well attended.

Further such events in 2019 dealt with Direct Taxation Matters, the Right to Information in the EU, the Legal responses to Online Hate Speech in the EU, Smart Contracts & Assignment of Claims, Consumer Protection and Financial Services, or Restructuring and Insolvency within the EU.

A platform for the discussion of legal policy

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n line with its Statute, ERA does not confine itself to the dissemination of European law via training, but also serves as a European platform for the discussion of legal policy. In so doing, ERA attaches great importance to remaining neutral and independent, for example by not becoming directly involved in the drafting of specific legal policies. ERA’s neutrality and independence have given it a role in a number of topical and fundamental debates at European level. The aim of such events is to stimulate reflection on future political developments in a field of law or, where future legislation is already at an advanced stage, to put forward practical considerations from legal practitioners and stakeholders for the evaluation of proposed legislation. This was for example the case with a timely event on new EU rules on e-evidence which was organised in cooperation with Queen Mary University London and which aimed at discussing the proposed Regulation on European Production and Preservation Orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters and a Directive laying down harmonised rules on the appointment of legal representatives for the purpose of gathering evidence in criminal proceedings (COM(2018) 225 and 226).

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In this category, one should also mention a series of three conferences in 2019 addressing the legal challenges posed by the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The first one, which dealt with its major repercussions for intellectual property and innovation, discussed the need for regulation of AI and the application in practice of legal principles in line with the Digital Single Market Strategy and the European intellectual property framework. A second conference focussed on the possible impact of AI on specific human rights, such as the prohibition of discriminations, the right to life, or the right to a fair trial. The last conference, held in Rome in cooperation with the Link Campus University and the Eurgit Association, analysed the benefits and risks of AI for the criminal justice system. This series of conferences gathered more than 200 participants from all over Europe.

Věra JOUROVÁ — European Commissioner

for Justice, Consumers & Gender Equality, 2014-19

Last, but not least, in the framework of the 30th anniversary of the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme of which it is a beneficiary, ERA organised a high-level conference to discuss the protection of European values by European law. The conference was opened by Commissioner Věra Jourová, European Parliament’s Vice President Katarina Barley and the European Commission’s EAC Director-General Themis Christophidou. After a thorough analysis of the concept of “European values”, successive panels took a closer look at how European law defends these values against both external and internal threats, and addressed the potential conflict between the values protected by EU law on the one hand and national constitutional law on the other.

The conference, which took place at the “House of European History” in Brussels, was also livestreamed and followed by some 80 people. In the same context, another conference organised under the auspices of the Finnish Presidency of the European Union and in cooperation with the Finnish Ministry of Justice aimed at better understanding the recent jurisprudence of the CJEU in the area of the rule of law.

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Summer Course on European Criminal Justice

PRACTICAL TRAINING COURSES AND WORKSHOPS Legal training for young professionals

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After considerably refreshing its range of summer courses the year before, ERA consolidated its offer in 2019 by providing courses covering, inter alia, anti-trust law, criminal justice, cross-border debt recovery, environmental law, insolvency law, intellectual property law, labour law, public procurement law, the rule of law, social security law, tax law, WTO/EU trade law, and the regulation and supervision of financial markets. In terms of attendance the summer course on data protection law was once again the most successful and gathered 58 participants.

All in all, 464 practitioners from all EU and EFTA member states, from all Western Balkan States, and other parts of the world (Argentina, Uruguay, Russia, USA,) participated in these courses in 2019.

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Intensive Course on Cross-Border Insolvency Proceedings

n terms of practical training ERA has considerably intensified its programme over recent years in order to meet better the needs of practitioners. This concerns in the first instance its series of intensive five-day summer courses aimed at young professionals and non-specialists.

Major efforts are made to ensure these courses are always top-quality: all of them include case studies, practical workshops and role-playing to allow participants to put into instant practice the knowledge they acquire. All courses provide the opportunity to attend a hearing at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Large–scale training projects

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he development of long-running large-scale training projects has become a very efficient means for ERA to achieve its mission of better promotion and dissemination of EU law among legal practitioners across Europe. These ambitious projects, which aim at broad geographical and professional coverage, usually share common features: (I) they are implemented not only in Trier but also in various Member States; (II) they are built on a large pan-European partnership generally composed of members of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and of national bars, which facilitates their implementation and ensures that awareness will be raised throughout the EU; (III) they are multilingual; (IV) they encompass more than face-to-face training, as they are complemented by subsites offering training materials, a comprehensive library, audio and video podcasts, sometimes e-learning modules; and (V) finally, they are funded partly or entirely by the European Union.

Among the most prominent examples of such projects in the ERA programme are the two long-running training programmes on “EU Anti-discrimination Law” and ”EU Gender Equality Law”. These projects, with twelve seminars per year bringing together some 600 judges, legal practitioners and academics from all EU Member States, have been implemented on behalf of and in cooperation with the European Commission under the “Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme 2014-2020”. In 2019, ERA was awarded two new four-year service contracts allowing to continue its activities in this area. Half of the 2019 seminars were held outside Trier.

ERA was honoured to cooperate in relation to three training events on EU anti-discrimination law implemented in Florence, Brussels and Barcelona with the Italian School for the Judiciary, the Belgian Institute for Judicial Training and the Barcelona Bar Association. Three training events on EU gender equality law were implemented in Thessaloniki, Prague and Lisbon in cooperation with the Greek National School of the Judiciary, the Czech Bar Association and the Portuguese Centre for Judicial Studies. In order to make the information provided at the seminars available to an even wider audience, an extensive online documentation (including PowerPoint presentations, an e-learning course, e-presentations, etc.) of the two series can be accessed for free on special ERA subsites. This documentation was extended and updated extensively in 2019. Since the beginning of ERA’s cooperation with the European Commission in the framework of the two series, the first of which has run since 2003, ERA has contributed to the training of some 7,500 legal professionals – more than half of whom were members of the judiciary – in the field of EU equality law.

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EU Disability Law and the UNCRPD - Seminar for Judges

BRUSSELS

BUDAPEST

PARIS

THESSALONIKI

In the same vein, one should mention ERA’s programme about the “training of legal and policy practitioners on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)”.

This Convention, as the first human rights treaty the EU has ratified, is an important tool in the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities. It seeks to elaborate and clarify existing obligations setting out legal standards on disability rights, it changes and affirms the status of persons with disabilities in human rights law and it strengthens the EU legislation on disability issues. In 2019, six training seminars were organised by ERA on behalf of the European Commission and in cooperation with the European Disability Forum (EDF) and the European Foundation Centre (EFC) and were attended by 227 participants. The objective of these seminars was to facilitate greater knowledge and a better understanding of the UNCRPD, its Optional Protocol and related European legislation as indicated in the EU declaration of competences and the EU report to the UN among legal and policy practitioners in the EU. One of the seminars in 2019 was offered with simultaneous interpretation in International Sign Language and Captioning and was live-streamed, allowing for the remote participation of more than 1000 practitioners. A recorded version of this live stream, combining the presentations with the Power Point presentations, as well as interpretation and captioning, was made freely available on ERA’s UNCRPD subsite. 2019 was the last year of this service contract implemented on behalf of the European Commission which saw ERA training more than 850 legal practitioners face to face and some 2200 remotely since 2016.

In 2019 ERA continued the implementation of its service contract with the European Commission’s DG COMP awarded in May 2018 and aimed at providing training in EU competition law to 450 national judges from at least twelve different Member States over a period of two years. The seminars that were held in 2019 within the framework of the project focused on providing national judges with an overview of the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and the relevant secondary legislation, as well as the national legislation transposing the Damages Directive, and on equipping them with the necessary tools to deal with State aid cases. The seminars took place in Brussels, Budapest, Paris, Thessaloniki, Trier and Vienna and were addressed at a domestic audience. This major project – which is supported by the judicial training institutes from twelve Member States, the Association of European Competition Law Judges and EJTN – has to be seen in the context of ERA’s long-standing commitment to the training of the judiciary on competition law since the entry into force of Regulation 1/2003.

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TRIER

VIENNA

The seminars took place in Brussels, Budapest, Paris, Thessaloniki, Trier and Vienna and were addressed at a domestic audience.

A similar large-scale approach has been chosen for other specific legal topics with long-running multilingual series of events throughout Europe over the last years, for example on the fight against cybercrime, e-evidence, procedural safeguards in the EU, the fight against terrorism and prevention of radicalisation in prisons as well as on the implementation and application of the newly introduced European Investigation Order (EIO). Another example for ERA’s efforts to follow the developments in European criminal law from the start and to offer training accordingly are its projects on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). Co-financed by the European Commission under its Justice Programme and with the support of the Ministry of Justice of Luxembourg, EJTN and ECBA, ERA ran a series of events in the course of 2019 to make prosecutors, judges, and defence lawyers from all EU Member States familiar with the EPPO and to sensitise legal practitioners to their forthcoming cooperation with the EPPO. This project is currently followed-up by a second project on the cooperation with the EPPO that aims at establishing a standardised training package for setting up interactive seminars on the EPPO for public prosecutors and investigating judges and to develop an online guideline and e-learning course on future EPPO proceedings tailor made for defence practitioners in the EU.

French National Police College

(ENSP) ― SAINT-CYR-AU-MONT-D’OR

EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training ― (CEPOL)

Last but not least, one should mention here the training for representatives of law enforcement authorities and the judiciary that ERA has run since 2016 under its framework partnership with the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL). In this context ERA has been very active on the topic of Joint Investigation Teams (JITs). In 2019, three training events dedicated to the implementation of JITs were implemented

by ERA in consortium with the French Police College (ENSP) and supported by the EJTN. These interactive seminars with a duration of three to four days offered training by means of a case simulation where participants were conducting a JIT from its setting up to the operation day receiving support from relevant EU agencies such as the JIT Secretariat, Europol and Eurojust. To simulate practice as much as possible, the events were attended by representatives of the law enforcement as well as prosecutors and judges. While the first training event of the series focused on the implementation of a JIT, the second also sets an eye on leadership within a JIT and the third was dedicated to participants of countries being members of the Police Cooperation Convention for Southeast Europe (PCC SEE), mainly the Western Balkans.

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Advanced training for the judiciary

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n 2019 ERA and SSR (the Dutch Training and Study Centre for the Judiciary), with the support of the judicial training institutes from Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Spain launched an innovative training project for court coordinators in European law. This is the first series of joint training activities of this kind which is offered to Court Coordinators in the EU. The project focusses on areas with particular relevance for these senior judges with advanced knowledge in EU law, namely fundamental rights, preliminary ruling and EU citizenship.

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The first seminar in a series of four took place in October 2019 in “ selected court-coordinator judges Trier. All in all, 150 selected judges will receive advanced and practical will receive advanced and practical training training and will enhance their knowledge and competences in the and will enhance their knowledge and application of EU law. Moreover, they will act as multipliers and pass on the knowledge acquired. The project provides a platform for competences in the application of EU law.” exchange of best practices, information and knowledge and create close contacts among Court Coordinators from Member States that have active networks. The judges participating in this series of seminars will all originate from the following national networks: the ‘Network of judges-coordinators on European law’ in Bulgaria, the ‘European Law Advisors’ Network’ (ELAN) in Hungary, the ‘Gaius network’ for Italy, ‘Eurinfra’ in the Netherlands, the newly created ‘Coordinators for International Cooperation and Human Rights’ in Poland, ‘EuRoQuod’ in Romania, and the ‘European Network of Legal Experts’ (REDUE) in Spain.

Tailor-made training for lawyers in private practice

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awyers in private practice belong to ERA’s principal target groups for training and professional exchange. Large parts of ERA’s open programme are of relevance for them – if not exclusively. Events of particular importance for private practitioners in 2019 included the “Annual Conference on European Family Law”, the ”Annual Conference on VAT Law”, the ”Annual Conference on Company Law and Corporate Governance”. In the same category, one should mention the half-day EU competition law workshops that have been organised for years in Brussels and that aim to provide in-depth analysis of key concepts of European competition law and focus on the latest trends in CJEU case law, legislative developments and European Commission practice. Three such workshops were organised in 2019 on “Latest Developments in EU Merger Control”, “Vertical Restraints: Current Issues and Challenges” and “The ECN+ Directive: Practical Implications for NCAs and Businesses”. ERA’s series of one-day events in Strasbourg aiming to provide an update on the most recent case law of the ECtHR in various fields also belongs to the type of events of great interest for private practitioners. Three such training events were implemented in Strasbourg in 2019 and covered the European Court’s case law on family matters and children’s rights, on taxation matters, on criminal matters. One more course of that kind was offered in Trier and dealt with the recent case of the European Courts on privacy and data protection law. Altogether these courses gathered some 170 participants from all over Europe.

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Large parts of ERA’s programmes co-financed or fully-financed by the EU are also targeted at lawyers in private practice. For example, 2019 saw ERA launching its second series of tailor-made seminars for practising lawyers in English and French on practical aspects of litigation before the CJEU. Based on the experience gathered in the framework of a similar project implemented in 2016 and 2017, each seminar contains one day of sessions in Trier at ERA’s premises followed by a visit to the Court and attendance at a hearing. The aim of this second project remains to improve lawyers’ knowledge of the proceedings before the Court and therefore contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU law. It also aims at rendering the lawyers more knowledgeable and self-confident in the area of EU law and thus more effective in their submissions to the Court, which helps to guarantee real access to justice.

All in all, 125 lawyers will have taken part in these seminars, the last two to be implemented early 2020. For this project, ERA cooperates once again with the European Lawyers Foundation (ELF), as well as the Spanish National Bar, the Athens Bar Association, the National Council of Legal Advisers from Poland, the Bar Council of Ireland, the Finnish Bar Association, the Haute École des Avocats Conseil, and the École Régionale des Avocats du Grand Est.

Intensive Course on Cross-Border Insolvency Proceedings

In the same vein, ERA together with the CCBE and the Polish Bar Foundation were awarded a grant from the European Commission to organise two more editions of the “Young Lawyers Contest” – the first edition of which had been organised in September 2018. This contest, which is largely inspired by the “Themis Competition” that EJTN has organised for young judges and prosecutors for many years, aims to develop cross-border working skills and a European law reflex among young lawyers. In teams composed of contestants from different European countries, the participants are challenged to apply their knowledge of European law in practical role-play scenarios. Under the watchful eye of a jury of leading European law practitioners, they learn to work with peers from other legal cultures to build strong cases in areas as diverse as criminal law, data protection, fundamental rights, public procurement, and business law. The contestants are judged both on their knowledge of European law and on their advocacy skills in drafting written arguments, conducting negotiations and pleading before a judge. The 60 plus applicants of the 2019-2020 contest had to undergo a strict selection procedure which led to the final participation of 31 candidates from 17 countries. Early 2020 ERA hosted the contest in Trier where ten mixed teams of three to four members each were asked to defend their written reports prepared in advance, followed by a negotiating exercise on company law. The two winning teams of the previous rounds confronted each other in an oral debate in the style of a moot court pleading. The winning team of competition consisted of three young lawyers from Belgium, Bulgaria and Finland.

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In the course of 2019, ERA signed framework agreements with the Portuguese Bar Association the Latvian Council of Sworn Advocates Another form of training implemented by ERA and targeted at the practical needs of lawyers in private practice are short courses related to specific EU law topics – such as the Barreau de Luxembourg corporate tax, VAT, cross-border insolvency proceedings, public procurement – in different European cities in the Lithuanian Bar Association cooperation with local bar associations. In doing so, ERA aims to complement what is offered by national providers by bringing – in contrast to their own programmes – a genuine European dimension and perspective to these events, in terms of both the contents and the expert speakers. For example, in 2019, ERA organised such a joint seminar on European Direct Taxation in cooperation with the Finnish Bar Association.

In the course of 2019, ERA signed framework agreements with the Portuguese Bar Association, the Latvian Council of Sworn Advocates, the Barreau de Luxembourg, and the Lithuanian Bar Association. Besides its cooperation with bars, ERA works frequently with associations or networks of individual lawyers or law firms. In 2019 it organised its seventh annual joint seminar in Brussels with the European Employment Lawyers Association (EELA). A long cooperation also exists with the Norwegian Center for Continuing Legal Education (Juristenes Utdanningssenter, JUS), founded by the Norwegian Bar Association and the Norwegian Association of Lawyers, with whom ERA organised one training event in 2019 in Brussels devoted to EEA/EU labour law for a group of 30 Norwegian lawyers.

It is often crucial for lawyers in private practice that their participation in one of ERA’s training events meets the compulsory professional development (CPD) requirements that have been introduced by many national bars and law societies. ERA makes every effort to ensure that participation by lawyers from all over Europe in its events is recognised under the various national schemes. Despite the diversity of regulations, attending a two-day ERA event meets the annual CPD requirements in most jurisdictions.

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In-house training on request

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raining requests from private and public actors at national and EU levels represent an important part of ERA’s activities. ERA is particularly valued for its training expertise, its network of experts, and its ability to deal with complex and very specific training requests. In that context, ERA continued the implementation of its training activities deriving from the four-year cooperation agreement with the Latvian Court Administration signed in January 2018, which provides for the organisation of 47 face-to-face seminars (and the development of e-learning courses) covering a broad range of EU law topics, such as company law, competition, insolvency, public procurement, State aid, IP law, financial and crime investigation, e-evidence, fundamental rights, civil & criminal justice cooperation, and data protection. Some 2,350 Latvian judges, assistants, lawyers, prosecutors, investigators, insolvency administrators, and policy makers will benefit directly from this project. In the course of 2019, 11 seminars were implemented in English and Latvian and reached over 500 Latvian practitioners.

As another example ERA was commissioned by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) – whose mission is to supervise the professionals and products of the Luxembourg financial sector – to organise a series of half-day seminars on company and banking law for its own staff. ERA also organised a seminar for Swedish judges in Trier entitled “The national judge as the first judge of EU law” on behalf of Sweden’s Domstolsakademin. Last but not least, the Bulgarian National Institute of Justice (NIJ) entrusted ERA with the conception and organisation of a hands-on seminar in Trier on judgecraft and ethics. The event looked at questions such as how to deal appropriately with conduct, ethical and other problems that confront judges inside and outside the court or tribunal; how to evaluate and assess testimony; how to address the concept of unconscious bias; and how to increase judicial resilience.

ERA also regularly implements training activities on behalf of EU institutions for their staff. For example, the European Parliament’s DG Personnel awarded ERA a service contract in Autumn 2018 aimed at developing a series of e-courses for their staff interpreters on “Privacy and Data Protection”, “Criminal Justice”, “Financial Regulation”, and “Capital Markets Regulation”; these four e-courses were finalised in April 2019. ERA also organised some six training programmes – in Luxembourg and Brussels – for and at the special request of the European Commission’s DG Translation on various topics, such as financial supervision in the EU, anti-money laundering and financial services in the EU. Last but not least, ERA was commissioned in 2019 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to develop a tailor-made e-learning course on European Intellectual property law for their legal officers.

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TRAINING MATERIALS In addition to implementing training programmes itself, ERA has in the last years devoted more and more resources to the development of standardised training materials and other resources that can be re-used by national training actors.

Case studies on EU civil justice instruments for court staff

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n 2018, ERA and EJTN were awarded an EU grant for a joint project aimed at tackling gaps in training on EU law for court staff. The project adopts a very practical methodological approach and proceeds with the development of training materials which will aid legal practitioners to apply actively the EU acquis in the area of civil justice and which will also be reusable in future training activities. Concretely, this project focuses on the European cross-border civil procedures and covers the following instruments with practical relevance for court staff’s work: the Brussels I Regulation (recast), the European Enforcement Order, the European Payment Order, the European Small Claims Procedure, the Regulations on Service of documents and Taking of evidence. For all instruments, practical case studies were developed by renowned EU law experts in the first quarter of 2019. Each case study includes the case scenario, the suggested solution and some methodological advice for using the case. In order to allow for the provision of language training, a manual on legal terminology in English covering the same instruments was also drafted by a linguistic expert.

The practical relevance of the developed training materials was discussed and assessed with twenty national experts from different EU Member States during a two-day coordinating meeting that was held at the ERA premises in April 2019. After this evaluation and up-dating of the materials the project consortium proceeded with the organisation of the seminar series.

Twenty 1.5-day legal seminars on specific aspects of cross-border civil litigation – based on solving the case studies developed – will be implemented until mid-2021 in 16 countries. In the second half of 2019, the first four national legal seminars were successfully held in Austria, Finland, Poland and Romania. In parallel to the organisation of these legal seminars, a series of thirteen training events is being implemented, offering both English language training and training on the abovementioned EU cross-border civil procedures by employing all developed materials. 75 court staff members from various Member States attended the first three language seminars held in Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania.

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This project is being supported by 22 national bodies responsible for court staff training in eighteen EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain). All these partners will translate (parts of) the training materials into their national languages – which represents a total of 16 EU official languages – for the implementation of the domestic legal seminars.

930 court staff from all over Europe will be the direct beneficiaries of innovative and practical legal training and will enhance their knowledge and competences in the use of EU civil law instruments. Of these, 330 court staff will also improve their basic language skills to better use the judicial cooperation instruments in English. Since the training packages in all language versions and the manual on legal terminology in English will be freely available for future use on the project’s subsite court-staff.legaltraining.eu, it is very likely the number of indirect beneficiaries will go beyond the partnership.

Summer Course on Cross-Border Civil Litigation

Complementing this project, 2019 saw ERA and EJTN awarded a grant by the European Commission for another legal and language training project for court staff, this time in the field of European criminal law. The new project, that started in November 2019, comprises the creation of a standardised training package, consisting of practical case studies and a manual on legal terminology in English, for setting up interactive seminars for court staff. In total, a series of nine national legal seminars and five language training events as well as a pan-European conference will be conducted in the course of the project until May 2022. While over 470 court staff will benefit directly from these training events, numerous others will be able to benefit from the standardised training package that will be made available publicly in ten languages and the project subsite containing all products of the project. Issues of European criminal law to be covered in the training events will include the legal framework of mutual legal assistance and mutual recognition, especially regarding, for instance, the application of the European Arrest Warrant and the use of the European Investigation Order. Like the aforementioned project in the area of civil justice, this second project for court staff in the area of criminal justice is being supported by seventeen national bodies responsible for court staff training in fourteen EU Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain).

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Manuals on legal terminology for practitioners

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he manual on legal terminology – which is one of the features of the aforementioned first project for court staff – is a tool that has already been successfully employed in previous training projects offered by ERA in the framework of EU projects in the area of EU civil law. A recent example is the project entitled “Mediation in the EU: Language, Law and Practice” which focused on language training in combination with legal training on cross-border mediation. In close cooperation with seven partner institutions, this project was completed in the first half of 2019. The main objective was to improve the legal and professional English-language skills of judges, lawyers and mediators in order to facilitate mediation procedures. Each of the seven 3-day seminars dealt with one of the following topics: civil and commercial mediation or family mediation. One linguistic manual was specially developed for each topic, focusing on reading and listening comprehension, relevant vocabulary, writing skills, etc. The manuals aim at the development of use-oriented second language skills through concurrent teaching of specific contents and language use. In addition to the manuals, a set of comprehensive case studies was developed for each topic by renowned EU law experts which were used in interactive workshops, thus allowing participants to learn about the procedures of crossborder mediation through practical exercises. 100 judges and 90 lawyers and mediators from different Member States benefitted from specialised English language training in the field of mediation. It is worth mentioning that the manuals were designed keeping in mind the possibility of using them as a stand-alone tool by any user who wishes to improve their level of English in this particular field, thus potentially expanding the number of beneficiaries.

The two manuals as well as the case studies remain freely accessible and downloadable on the project’s subsite: era-comm.eu/Language_Mediation.

Training modules on behalf of the European Commission’s DG Environment

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n 2017 ERA was awarded another four-year service contract to continue a major project on behalf of the European Commission’s DG Environment entitled “Cooperation with National Judges in the Field of EU Environmental Law”, which aims to develop training modules on various topics of EU environmental law as well as to organise workshops for judges.

This project, which ERA has been in charge of since December 2013, has led to the development of comprehensive standardised training materials which promote interrogative and participative learning methods and are easily reusable. The entire training packages are accessible online (www.era.int/judges&environmental_law) by any party or institution interested in organising future training in these areas of law. The materials are addressed to both end users and training providers. The “user’s pack” includes the traditional documentation with the related legislation and jurisprudence of the CJEU to be distributed to end users in advance of the training in the form of an introductory e-learning course. Blended learning as a methodological tool ensures initial familiarisation with the scope and objectives of the training and a level playing field for all participants, whilst at the same time constituting a resource for future reference as it remains freely available after the completion of the training event. Although a significant part of the training relies on the provision of information on different legal instruments through face-to-face

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presentations, the “user’s pack” is complemented by workshop exercises (case studies, IT-supported training sessions, role-play) requiring the active contribution of the participants. In addition to the materials included in the “users’ pack”, training providers have access to the “trainer’s manual”, which explains how best to navigate through the materials available and how these may be integrated into future workshops by providing information on their structure, content and methodology. Further to this, information on the organisational aspects of a training event, such as guidelines on how to identify possible trainers, select the participants or evaluate the training event, have been included.

“This type of project developing tailor-made training materials has been very well received and seems to meet the expectations and needs of national judicial training actors.”

After developing training modules on “EU Law on Industrial Emissions” and the “Interaction between the EIA and the Nature Directives” in 2013, “Participatory and Procedural Rights in Environmental Matters” in 2014, “EU Air Quality and Noise Legislation” in 2015, “Biodiversity and Wildlife Trafficking” in 2016, “EU Water Law” and “EU Nature Protection Legislation – Focus on Site Protection” in 2017, “EU Nature Protection Legislation – Focus on Species Protection” and “EU Environmental Impact Assessment Law” in 2018, ERA was asked to design two new training modules in 2019 on the “EU Aarhus Acquis – Focus on Access to Justice” and on the “Industrial Emissions Directive”.

The latter two modules were tested and subsequently implemented in the framework of a series of 2.5-day workshops held in Prague in cooperation with the Czech Judicial Academy and the Czech Supreme Administrative Court, in Warsaw in cooperation with the Polish Supreme Administrative Court, in Thessaloniki in cooperation with the Hellenic School of Judges and once in Trier. Another workshop on nature protection law took place in Rome. It should be stressed that this last workshop, held in Italian, was designed exclusively for Italian and Maltese judges and benefitted from the support of the Italian Council of State and the Maltese Judicial Studies Committee. Early January 2020, one more environmental law workshop was held in Nicosia with the support of the Supreme Court of Cyprus for a group of 24 Cypriot judges and prosecutors in Greek. It seems that ERA will be asked to develop more and more training materials incorporating both EU and domestic law aspects of the topics at stake in the native language of the hosting judicial training institutions. This approach aspires to increase the uptake of the training materials as well as to offer tailor-made modules better matching the needs of national judges in European Environmental Law. Last but not least, ERA and EJTN organised in 2019 a joint training event on EU environmental law which made use of various training materials developed under the DG ENV programme.

This type of project developing tailor-made training materials has been very well received and seems to meet the expectations and needs of national judicial training actors. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that for this service contract ERA was able to secure the support of judicial training institutes, supreme administrative courts, and judges’ associations from nineteen jurisdictions (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, United Kingdom) as well as the support of the Association of the Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the European Union a.i.s.b.l. (ACA-Europe), the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE) and the Association of European Administrative Judges (AEAJ).

39

ERA FORUM Journal of the Academy of European Law

E

RA Forum is a quarterly journal published by ERA in cooperation with Springer (Berlin/ Heidelberg). It is composed of articles based on the most outstanding presentations delivered at ERA’s conferences. The journal can be accessed in several ways: through individual article downloads, in the form of an annual subscription, or mainly as part of online packages available to institutional subscribers around the world.

Thanks to a framework of agreements between Springer and the authors’ institutions – often universities – an increasing number of these articles is available for free as part of an “Open Access” arrangement.

Topics covered in 2019

Articles from the journal were downloaded a total of 79,117 times in 2019, 53% more than in the previous year.

Consumer Protection

From “FinTech on the Dark Web” and “The Risks and Rewards of Deploying Malware in Pursuit of Justice” through “U.S. Sanctions on Iran vs. the EU Blocking Regulation” to “The Impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on Social Security” and “Animal Welfare before the CJEU”, the original and insightful articles published in 2019 reflected the breadth and depth of European law.

The authors included judges from the European and national courts, senior lawyers in private practice and top academics from across Europe.

Brexit Copyright Law Court Proceedings Criminal Law Cross-border Corporate Governance E-Justice Environmental Law Family & Succession Law FinTech GDPR & Social Security Judicial Independence Judicial Review

79,117

Labour Law Payment Accounts Directive Privacy Law Terrorism VAT & E-Commerce Virtual and Digital Currencies

51,737

20,921

2011

40

21,120

2012

26,014

25,154

2013

2014

33,070

33,740

2015

2016

38,782

2017

2018

2019

DISTANCE LEARNING ERA’s distance-learning programme is an extension and reflection of the conferences, workshops and training materials described in previous sections of this report.

By offering its programmes in an online format, ERA ensures that it can reach a wider audience than can attend face-to-face events as well as leaving a durable legacy from those live programmes. An overview is available at www.era.int/elearning.

Webinars and live streams

F

or a number of years ERA has been live-streaming its afternoon workshops on EU antitrust law in Brussels and in 2019 went completely online. The workshop on vertical restraints was held as a live-streamed face-to-face seminar, while the events on merger control and on the ECN+ Directive took place only in the form of webinars (with all participants attending online). Due to the higher interest in the live stream of the workshops than in their face-toface form, it was decided that the future events of this type will be organised as webinars only.

In 2019 ERA also streamed live its highly topical legal policy seminars on “Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights” and “Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Single Market” as well as the conference it organised in the framework of the 30th anniversary of the Jean Monnet Programme entitled “European Law Protecting our Common Values”. In the framework of its EU-funded project on EU Disability Law and the UNCRPD, ERA also live-streamed one of its seminars with closed-captioning and international sign language.

There is clear interest among practitioners for live webinars and streaming. Online participants receive all the related background documentation, can interact with speakers through a chat function, have the option to replay a recording of the stream after the event, and – by agreeing for their presence to be regularly tracked – can receive a certificate to confirm their attendance.

ERA intends to offer more programmes in these formats in future.

41

e-Presentations

e

-Presentations – film recordings of speakers at ERA events combined with embedded background documentation and a self-assessment quiz – provide another way to prolong the life of ERA’s live programmes in different online formats. In 2019, 41 new e-presentations dealing with specific and current issues of European law were produced, bringing the total catalogue to 480.

For each e-presentation, there is a basic version available for free and a premium version with added functionality, including the possibility to obtain a certificate to meet continuing professional development (CPD) obligations, which is available on the ERA website for a modest fee. The basic version is also available on ERA’s YouTube Channel www.youtube. com/c/EuropeanLawERA, which was viewed over 19,000 times in 2019, an increase of 21% compared to the previous year.

e-Courses

E

RA’s output of new e-learning courses in 2019 came mainly in the framework of EU-funded projects. One course on EU Anti-discrimination Law was updated and redesigned and is available for free on the ERA website. In the framework of a project funded by the European Commission’s DG Environment on “EU Environmental Law for National Judges”, three new blended e-learning courses (one of which in Italian) were developed, as well as two new standalone courses. In addition, 52 new e-presentations were produced on both these topics as well as on EU Competition Law for National Judges and on EU Disability Law and the UNCRPD. To prepare for the launch of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office at the end of 2020, ERA produced a short film explaining the reasons for setting it up, as well as its competences, roles and tasks.

Tailor-made distance-learning solutions

I

n addition to the distance-learning resources available on its own website, ERA also regularly develops tailor-made e-learning solutions for the EU institutions and other clients. In 2019, ERA delivered a series of e-courses for the staff interpreters of the European Parliament on “Privacy and Data Protection”, “Criminal Justice”, “Financial Regulation” and “Capital Markets Regulation” in the framework of a service contract with its DG Personnel. ERA was also commissioned in 2019 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to develop a tailor-made e-learning course on European Intellectual Property Law for their legal officers.

42

ERA SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME E

RA runs a scholarship programme to enable practitioners of law who could not otherwise afford to do so to participate in its conferences, seminars and summer courses. The programme is financed solely by donations.

Kristina Radeska Public Prosecutor, Primary Public Prosecutor's Office, Kumanovo, Northern Macedonia Scholarship: Summer Course on European Criminal Justice, Trier, 24-28 June 2019 I work as a public prosecutor in the Primary Public Prosecutor’s Office in Kumanovo. In my country, entry into the EU has been a crucial impetus for legislative change. In 2013, a series of reforms were introduced to comply with the Union’s requirements, including a complete overhaul of criminal procedure. Investigative proceedings were passed entirely from the hands of the investigative judges to the hands of public prosecutors.

My office has been working hard to avoid any conflicts with EU and ECHR law, and I have greatly appreciated the chance to attend lectures clarifying these issues.

Furthermore, the Summer Course was extremely useful in introducing tools for cross-border evidence collection and cooperation, including but not limited to cooperation through institutions like Eurojust, EJN, Europol and EPPO. Overall, I would like to say a huge thank you to ERA for the wonderful educational but also social experience.

I hope to attend more ERA trainings in the future.”

In 2019, ERA awarded 32 scholarships amounting to a total of €32,000 to legal practitioners from 14 different countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Macedonia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey.

ERA would like to thank all those who supported the scholarship programme with a donation in 2019:

• Friends of ERA Association • Nina Niejahr • Hein Hobbelen • Georgeta Dinu • Donald Slater • Zoltán Hegymegi-Barakonyi • Balázs Muraközy • Mart van Hulten • Alexander von Mühlendahl • Ranko Pelicarić • Horstpeter Kreppel • Jean-Francois Laborde • Peter Vajda • John Stanford • Paola Balbo • Angela Vernia • Robert Hahn • Klaus Jakumeit • Joseph Mifsud

A n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 1 9

43

ECC In addition to ERA’s legal training activities which are held in our own premises in Trier, events of external clients are also regularly hosted in the ERA Conference Centre (ECC). After an exceptionally successful 2018, ECC turnover in 2019 was nevertheless second best ever. The main activities hosted are more medium size fairs or larger congresses with up to 200-250 people, often with a parallel exhibition. Our regional and supra-regional clients were labour unions, public authorities, associations, companies, universities, the state of Rhineland-Palatine and the city of Trier (both founding patrons of ERA).

Events highlights in the ERA Conference Centre

T

he European character of the Academy, the central location of its conference centre and the available interpretation facilities qualify the ECC to be a special destination for small to medium sized international events. In this context the following events should be highlighted as exemplary conferences and activities in 2019.

The bi-lingual 12th international congress on city development (Städtebaukongress) was organised by the University of Trier. As English and French were the leading language of this congress, ECC interpretation facilities were an added value to the deliberations.

The Konrad-Adenauer Foundation again organized a four-day international conference in the ECC. The subject of this conference, to which ERA’s director Wolfgang Heusel was invited as an external speaker, was the question of how Europe deals with the fight against populism. The ECC provided an excellent room logistic, offering space for the plenary meeting and several different workshops. The proximity of the ECC to Luxembourg was optimised, with visits to an embassy as well as to Schengen.

44

The city of Trier organised in cooperation with the German Institut für Urbanistik gGmbH, a bilingual symposium on urban mobility in the ECC. Over three days, participants discussed urban planning issues, authorizations and procedures in matters of urban mobility as well as policies regarding environmental protection and traffic and parking.

Two other specific activities taking place in the ECC facilities were addressed to pupils of senior classes of schools in the region of Trier-Saarburg. More than 1.500 pupils visited the Talent fair in June 2020 and the European Job day had over 800 pupils taking part in the event.

It is of great importance that ECC service and support is placed at the disposal of all our clients.

The ECC and its partners focus their efforts to keep a high level of hospitality and cooperation as these are key factors for customer satisfaction. The following quote from one of our clients confirms this commitment: “Our guests felt well provided for and they appreciated that you worked efficiently and proactively for all our interests. Just your charming, calm and careful way of working has often been complimented. The rooms of ERA Conference Centre were perfectly arranged for our conference (exactly as previously agreed!). The caterer you recommended provided a spectacular service with meals of Michelin level and with an attentive but never intrusive service!

That was truly a sight to behold! Lastly: our tourism social programme in Trier was so great! The city is worth it! We definitively plan to come back!”.

ECC Revenue As previously mentioned, also from an economical point of view the ECC has achieved a successful business year. Compared to the previous year the income from renting premises to third parties decreased by 15%, however it remains the second most successful year since the Academy’s premises were first offered to external clients.

Rent, food and beverage services remain the primary source of operating revenue for the ERA Conference Centre. Generating 75 per cent of total revenue in 2019, the percentage of both sources compared to the total income decreased slightly compared to the previous year. Unfortunately the forecast for 2020 is understandably disappointing. The Corona crisis will have an enormous effect on all of our income from commercial activities. In order to at least compensate a part of the income lost, a start was made in Spring 2020 with a new online interactive conference service offered.

Annual Conference on Succession Law

Revenue composition

38%

Space rental

37%

Catering/Beverages

11%

Commission

9%

Parking

5%

Other

A n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 1 9

45

THE TEAM DIRECTOR

WOLFGANG HEUSEL Director

NATHALIE DESSERT Assistant to Dr Heusel

NATALIA BOXBERG Assistant to Dr Heusel

Human Resources

JUTTA BREIT

Head of Human Resources

ALEXANDRA KNIPPEL-PROBST

SUSANNE LUDWIG

SABINE WEINAND

JULIA BOLLIG

JULIA REITZ

MIRIAM SCHRAMER

Human Resources Assistant

Human Resources Assistant

Library Head Librarian

Assistant Librarian

PROGRAMME

JEAN-PHILIPPE RAGEADE Deputy Director

Assistant to Mr Rageade

Assistant to Mr Rageade

THE ERA TEAM IS COMPOSED OF 83 STAFF FROM 16 COUNTRIES

European Private Law

ANGELIKA FUCHS Head of Section

EVA HEALY Assistant

LEYRE MAISO

Deputy Head of Section

BARBARA HENSE Assistant

TABEA LÜTH Assistant

DANIEL GÄRTNER Course Director

CHRISTIANE SCHMITZ Assistant

ANASTASIA PATTA Course Director

KATHRIN SPARTZ Assistant

European Business Law

FLORENCE HARTMANN -VAREILLES

AVGUSTINA DORICH Deputy Head of Section

JENS HILLEBRAND POHL

JAROSLAV OPRAVIL

Course Director

Course Director

TATSIANA BRAS-GONÇALVES

UTA ELLERHORST

Head of Section

SUSANNE BABION Assistant

Assistant

Assistant

JOHANNA KLAAS Assistant

NICOLE PEETERS Assistant

European Criminal Law

LAVIERO BUONO

CORNELIA RIEHLE

RAMIN FARINPOUR

CECILIA HOLMSTEN

ANNETTE GEIBEL

ELIZABETH GREENWOOD

KAROLINA ROKICKA

MONIKA ZELINSKI

KARINE CAUNES

MAGDALENA KĘDZIOR

KLEONIKI POUIKLI

Head of Section

Course Director

Deputy Head of Section

Assistant

Senior Lawyer

Assistant

European Public Law Head of Section

INGRIDA ILGAUSKIENE Course Director

SANJA JOVIČIĆ Course Director

SABINE FRAMING Assistant

Deputy Head of Section

Course Director

LAURA KÖNIG Assistant

Senior Lawyer

Course Director

KARIN WENZEL Assistant

FINANCE & CONFERENCE SERVICES

LUC DOEVE

SUSANNE SCHUCKART

HEINZ MONSCH

ALICJA BAGINSKI

MARIANNE REICHERTZ

CLAUDIA SCHWEIZER

SONJA HERZOG

STEFANIE LEGGEWIE

Deputy Director

Accounts Assistant

Assistant to Mr Doeve

Accounts Assistant

HEIKE KAPPES-SCHÄFER CHRISTIANE CRLJEN Invoicing

Reception

MARLENE DIETSCH Reception

Head of Accounts

Invoicing

CAMILLA KÖNIG Reception

Accounts Assistant

Invoicing

GERSENDE BACHELIER ECC

CHRISTA WAGNER

NADINE KLEMENS

MYRIAM WOLF

OLIVER STEUERNAGEL

STEPHAN BÖTTCHER

MARC SCHMIDT

RALF FREITAG

NORBERT BADEN

Head of Service and Catering

IT

Service and Catering

IT

Service and Catering

Head of Technical Services

Head of IT

Technical Services

WILHELM HEUSCHREIBER Technical Services

WERNER LIESEN Technical Services

WOLFGANG MARX Technical Services

HENDRIK NESEKER Technical Services

WILHELM RULAND Technical Services

CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

JOHN COUGHLAN

JOANNA KUZAJ

TANJA BERNHARDT

PHILIPP GONDER

Deputy Director

STEPHANIE HOFFMANN Marketing Manager

ANNA LEES

Key Account Officer

JANINE NOTTER

PR & Social Media Officer

JOCHEN BÖHM Web Manager

Marketing Officer

SABINE HERRIG Assistant

SVEN PESCHEL Media Designer

Assistant to Mr Coughlan

Marketing Officer

JOYCE NILSEN Assistant

MONIKA HAMMERLE Assistant

GENDER OF ERA’S EMPLOYEES

60 23

Female Employees

Male Employees

GENDER OF ERA’S EMPLOYEES BY SECTOR

Director, HR, Library

Finance & Conference Services

1

12

7

14

Programmes

Corporate Communications

4

6

8

31

THE BOARDS AT 31 DECEMBER 2019

I. Governing Board President JACQUES SANTER

Former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, former President of the European Commission, former Member of the European Parliament, Representing Luxembourg

For Belgium:

KOEN GEENS

Minister of Justice

For Bulgaria:

DANAIL KIRILOV

Minister of Justice

For Croatia:

Vice-President HENDRIK HERING

President of the Parliament of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Representing Rhineland-Palatinate

Members

DRAŽEN BOŠNJAKOVIĆ

Minister of Justice

For Cyprus:

COSTAS CLERIDES

Attorney General

For the European Parliament:

KATARINA BARLEY

Vice-President

For the Czech Republic:

MICHAL FRANĚK

Deputy Minister of Justice

For the Court of Justice of the European Union:

KOEN LENAERTS

President

For Denmark:

MERETHE ECKHARDT

Director of Development, Danish Court Administration

For Austria:

A.I. CHRISTINE PESENDORFER

Head of Section IV/9 – Legal Service Federal Chancellery

52

For Estonia:

RAIVO AEG

Minister of Justice

verning Board

President of the Go

Jacques SANTER

For Finland:

For Lithuania:

KARI KIESILÄINEN

Director General, Ministry of Justice

IRMA GUDŽIŪNAITĖ

Vice Minister of Justice

For France:

For Malta:

CAROLINE GONTRAN

Head of the European and International Department, Ministry of Justice

OWEN BONNICI

Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government

For Germany:

For the Netherlands

CHRISTINE LAMBRECHT

Federal Minister of Justice and for Consumer Protection

GERARD TANGENBERG

President, Board of Directors, Training and Study Centre for the Judiciary (SSR)

For the German Länder:

For Poland:

PETER BIESENBACH

Minister of Justice, North Rhine-Westphalia

DR ANNA DALKOWSKA

Undersecretary of State

For Greece:

For Portugal:

KONSTANTINOS TSIARAS

Minister of Justice

JOÃO DA SILVA MIGUEL

Director of the Centre for Judicial Studies

For Hungary:

For Romania:

JÁNOS BÓKA

State Secretary, Ministry of Justice

CĂTĂLIN PREDOIU

Minister of Justice

For Ireland:

For Scotland:

DEIRBHLE MURPHY

Office of the Attorney General

JAMES WOLFFE QC

The Lord Advocate

For Italy:

For Slovakia:

MASSIMO CONDINANZI

Professor at the University of Milan

ING. SYLVIA BEŇOVÁ

Secretary General, Ministry of Justice

For Latvia:

For Slovenia:

ANNA SKRJABINA

Project Leader, Court Administration of Latvia

GREGOR STROJIN

Secretary of State

53

For Spain:

MARÍA DE LAS HERAS GARCÍA

Director of the Centre for Legal Studies at the Ministry of Justice

For Sweden:

ANNA-CARIN SVENSSON

Director General for International Affairs, Ministry of Justice

Members HERBERT MERTIN

Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Rhineland-Palatinate

CLAUDE MORAES

Former Member of the European Parliament, former Chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

For the City of Trier:

WOLFRAM LEIBE

Mayor

For the United Kingdom:

JONATHAN JONES

The Treasury Solicitor

Special representative of the state where the Academy has its seat:

DORIS AHNEN

Minister of Finance, Rhineland-Palatinate

For the Association for the Promotion of the

III. Board of Trustees Chairperson PAULIINE KOSKELO

Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg

Deputy chairpersons ZUZANA FIŠEROVÁ

Director of the International Department for Civil Matters and Junior Deputy Minister, Ministry of Justice, Prague

Academy:

JETTIE VAN CAENEGEM

Chairwoman

MARC VAN DER WOUDE

President of the General Court of the European Union, Luxembourg

II. Executive Board Chairperson PAVEL SVOBODA

Former Member of the European Parliament, former Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs

54

Members STEFANIA BARIATTI

Professor at the University of Milan; Of Counsel at Chiomenti Studio Legale, Milan/ Brussels

MASSIMO BENEDETTELLI

Partner at ARBLIT, Milan

PHILIP BUISSERET

Secretary General of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), Brussels

Pauliine KOSKELO

PETER SCHMIDHUBER

Former Member of the European Commission

Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg

Co-opted:

Former Member of the European Parliament, former Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs

Pavel SVOBODA

CHRISTOPHER BUTTIGIEG

Lecturer at the Banking and Finance Department, University of Malta

JANEEN CARRUTHERS

Professor at the University of Glasgow School of Law

VASSILI CHRISTIANOS

Partner at Christianos & Partners, Athens; Emeritus Professor of European Union Law at the Law School of the University of Athens

PIERRE-HENRI CONAC

Professor at the University of Luxembourg

GEORGES-ALBERT DAL

Partner at DALDEWOLF; Emeritus Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven; former President of the CCBE, Brussels

FRANCESCO DE ANGELIS

Hon. Director General of the European Commission, Brussels

CATHERINE DE BOLLE

Director of Europol, The Hague

MARC DE VOS

Dean of the Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University, Australia

FREDDY DREXLER

Jurisconsult and Director General of the Legal Service of the European Parliament, Luxembourg

SIR DAVID A. O. EDWARD

former member of the Court of Justice of the EU, Edinburgh

CHARLES ELSEN

former Director General of Justice and Home Affairs at the Council of the European Union, Luxembourg

GREGORIO GARZÓN CLARIANA

former Jurisconsult of the European Parliament, Barcelona

CRISTINA GONZÁLEZ BEILFUSS

Professor at the University of Barcelona

WALTRAUD HAKENBERG

former Registrar of the Civil Service Tribunal of the EU, Luxembourg

LADISLAV HAMRAN

President of Eurojust, The Hague

HANS-JÜRGEN HELLWIG

Partner at Hengeler Mueller; former President of the CCBE, Frankfurt am Main

STEPHAN JAGGI

Director of the German Judicial Academy, Trier/Wustrau

ANDREJ KMECL

Judge at the Administrative Court of the Republic of Slovenia

VANESSA KNAPP OBE

Independent Consultant and Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London

LUDWIG KRÄMER

Partner at Brenes Abogados, Madrid

55

YVES KREINS

former First President of the Council of State, Brussels

JACQUES MALHERBE

Of Counsel at Simont Braun, Brussels

IRĒNA KUCINA

Rule of Law and EU Legal Policy Adviser, Head of the President’s Advisers’ Office at the Chancery of the President of the Republic of Latvia, Riga

HOLGER MATT

former Chairman of the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA), Frankfurt am Main

KARI KUUSINIEMI

President of the Supreme Administrative Court, Helsinki

ALEXANDER LAYTON QC

Barrister, 20 Essex Street, London

HUBERT LEGAL

former Director General of the Legal Service of the Council of the EU, Brussels

KLAUS-HEINER LEHNE

President of the European Court of Auditors, Luxembourg

LOUISE LEE LETH

Head of Department of Training at the Danish Court Administration, Copenhagen

OLA LÖFGREN

Secretary to the European Judicial Network (EJN), The Hague

BERTRAND LOUVEL

former First President of the Court of Cassation, Paris

CONSTANTINOS LYCOURGOS

Judge at the Court of Justice of the EU, Luxembourg

56

JÁN MAZÁK

Former Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the EU, Luxembourg/Košice

PETER-CHRISTIAN MÜLLER-GRAFF

Seniorprofessor, Honorary Jean Monnet Professor at the University of Heidelberg

RIMVYDAS NORKUS

Judge at the General Court of the European Union, Luxembourg

LUÍS PEREIRA

Deputy Director of the Centre for Judicial Studies (CEJ), Lisbon; former Secretary General of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN)

ANDREA POSAVEC FRANI

Director of the Judicial Academy, Zagreb

WOJCIECH POSTULSKI

Secretary General of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN), Brussels

RAUL-MIHAI RĂDOI

Secretary General of the Council of the Notariats of the European Union (CNUE), Brussels

MARÍA JOSÉ RANGEL DE MESQUITA

Judge at the Constitutional Court, Lisbon

Board of TRUSTEES

CHRISTINE ROGER

Director General for Justice and Home Affairs in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, Brussels

LUIS ROMERO REQUENA

Director General of the Legal Service of the European Commission, Brussels

TARU SPRONKEN

Professor at Maastricht University; Advocate General at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, The Hague

ALAIN STEICHEN

Partner at Bonn Steichen & Partners, Luxembourg

ALAIN STROWEL

Professor at the Facultés Universitaires de Saint-Louis, Brussels

MACIEJ SZPUNAR

First Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the EU, Luxembourg

PATRICK THIEFFRY

Partner at Thieffry & Associés; Associate Professor at the Sorbonne School of Law, Paris

ANTONIO TIZZANO

former Vice President of the Court of Justice of the EU, Luxembourg

LORD TYRE (COLIN TYRE CBE)

Judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland, Edinburgh

JETTIE VAN CAENEGEM

Chairwoman of the Association for the Promotion of ERA (“Friends of ERA”), Ghent

DIANA WALLIS

former President of the European Law Institute (ELI), Hull

TOMASZ WARDYŃSKI

Partner at Wardyński & Partners, Warsaw

HEINZ WEIL

Partner at Weil & Associés; former President of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), Paris

MICHAEL JÜRGEN WERNER

Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, Brussels

DRAGOMIR YORDANOV

Executive Director of the European School of Enforcement, Sofia

EDITH ZELLER

President of the Association of European Administrative Judges, Vienna

CAMELIA TOADER

Judge at the Court of Justice of the EU, Luxembourg

CHRISTA TOBLER

Professor at the Universities of Basel and Leiden

57

COOPERATION PARTNERS 2019 European level Association of European Administrative Judges (AEAJ) Association of European Competition Law Judges (AECLJ) Council of the Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) Court of Justice of the European Union European Association of Judges for Mediation (GEMME) European Commission – DG Competition, DG Education and Culture, DG Environment, DG Home, DG Justice, DG Translation, OLAF European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) European Disability Forum (EDF) European Employment Lawyers Association (EELA) European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Disability Thematic Network of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) European Law Institute (ELI) European Lawyers Foundation (ELF) European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association (EULITA) European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE) European Parliament European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) Europol Data Protection Experts Network (EDEN) Institute of European Media Law (EMR)

58

National level Austria – Federal Ministry of Justice Belgium – Judicial Training Institute (IGO-IFJ) Belgium – Union of Commercial Judges of Belgium (UJCB/URHB) Bulgaria – Foundation European School of Enforcement (ESE) Bulgaria – National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Croatia – Judicial Academy Czech Republic – Judicial Academy Czech Republic – Czech Bar Association Czech Republic – Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic Czech Republic – Office for the Protection of Competition (UOHS) Denmark – Danish National Police Estonia – Estonian Bar Association Estonia – Estonian Prosecutor’s Office Estonia – Supreme Court Finland – Finnish Bar Association Finland – Ministry of Justice France – École Régionale des Avocats Grand Est (ERAGE) France – Haute École des Avocats Conseils (HEDAC) France – National High School for the Police (ENSP) France – National School for Clerks (ENG) France – National School for the Judiciary (ENM) Germany – Bavarian State Ministry of Justice Germany – Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) Germany – Hesse Germany – German Bar Association Committee

for Intellectual Property and Media Germany – German Bar Association Committee for Labour Law Germany – Ministry of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia Germany – Judicial Academy of North Rhine-Westphalia Germany – Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection,

Rhineland Palatinate Germany – Ministry of Justice of Baden Württemberg Greece – Athens Bar Association Greece – Bar Association of Thessaloniki Greece – National School of Judiciary Hungary – National Office of the Judiciary (NOJ) Ireland – The Bar of Ireland

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Italy – High School for the Magistracy Italy – Link Campus University of Rome Latvia – Latvian Council of Sworn Advocates Latvia – Judicial Training Centre (LTMC) Latvia – National Courts Administration Latvia – Latvian Council of Sworn Advocates Lithuania – Lithuanian Bar Association Lithuania – National Courts Administration Lithuania – Prosecutor General’s Office Luxembourg – Luxembourg Bar Association Luxembourg – Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) Luxembourg – German Bar Association in Luxembourg Luxembourg – Ministry of Justice Malta – Judicial Studies Committee (JSC) Netherlands – Training and Study Centre for the Judiciary (SSR)

Poland – National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution (KSSiP) Poland – Polish Bar Foundation Poland – National Bar of Attorneys at Law Poland – Supreme Administrative Court Portugal – Portuguese Bar Association (OA) Portugal – Centre for Judicial Studies (CEJ) Portugal – Ministry of Justice, Directorate General for the Administration

of Justice (DGAJ),

Luxembourg Chapter

Norway – Center for Continuing Legal Education

Romania – National Institute of Magistracy (NIM) Romania – National School of Clerks

Spain – Barcelona Bar Association (ICAB) Spain – General Council of the Spanish Bar Spain – Judicial School of the General Council of the Judiciary Spain – Centre for Legal Studies (CEJ), Ministry of Justice Sweden – Judicial Training Academy, National Courts Administration United Kingdom – Queen Mary University of London United Kingdom – Judicial College of England & Wales

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Luxembourg Chapter

Slovenia – Judicial Training Centre, Ministry of Justice

FRIENDS OF ERA T

he Friends of ERA (officially the Association for the Promotion of the Academy of European Law) brings together individual and institutional members to support ERA’s work – especially by funding ERA’s scholarship programme – and to continue the networking experience initiated when they participate in ERA events.

The Association benefited from a boost of over 16% in the number of individual members (335) in 2019 and welcomed a new institutional member in the form of the leading independent Polish law firm Wardyński & Partners. The members are spread across 32 different countries both in Europe and further afield.

On 6 March 2019, the 13th General Meeting of the Association was hosted by the Convenor of the Luxembourg Chapter Carlo Schockweiler in the premises of the Administrative Tribunal of Luxembourg. Jettie Van Caenegem was re-elected as Chair and Alain Lamassoure and Manuel Medina Ortega as members of the Executive Committee for a further two-year term.

National Chapters

I

n a number of countries, national chapters of the association organised their own events in the course of the year:

Belgian Chapter: 19 October 2019, following the special ERA conference to mark 30 years of the Jean Monnet Programme: dinner

German Chapter: 3 September 2019: Visit of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt am Main, followed by dinner

Luxembourg Chapter: 6 March 2019, following the General Meeting: visit of the art collection of the European Investment Bank and dinner 26 September 2019: Visit of the Cité Judiciaire hosted by the Deputy Prosecutor General Jeannot Nies, followed by dinner

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Portugese Chapter

Portuguese Chapter: 14 November 2019: Reception with guest speaker Prof José Luís Cruz Vilaça, former Judge at the Court of Justice of the EU, followed by dinner

In addition, events were organised in conjunction with ERA conferences in other countries:

Rome, 24 October 2019: dinner with guest speaker Judge Giuliana Civinini, President of the Court of Pisa, former agent for the Italian Government before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

Vilnius, 25 March 2019: networking reception and dinner with guest speakers Rimvydas Norkus, (then) President of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, and Evaldas Pašilis, Prosecutor General of the Republic of Lithuania

Supporting ERA

I

n 2019, the Association made a donation to ERA of €38,000 to support the scholarship programme for practitioners of law who would otherwise be unable to attend ERA’s training programmes in 2019 and partly also in 2020.

Find out more at www.era.int/friends

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CREDIT PUBLISHER Academy of European Law Metzer Allee 4 54295 Trier Phone: +49 (0)651 93737-0 E-mail: info@era.int EDITORS Janine Notter John Coughlan CONCEPT & DESIGN Alternatives Communication www.alternatives.lu PRINTING PRESS print solutions s.Ã r.l. www.printsolutions.lu PHOTOS ERA p.26/27 The European Commission COPYRIGHT Academy of European Law

A n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 1 9

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Erasmus+Programme The Academy of European Law is funded with support from the European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

ACADEMY OF EUROPEAN LAW Metzer Allee 4 54295 Trier, Germany Phone: +49 (0) 651 93737-0 Fax: +49 (0) 651 93737-90 E-mail: info@era.int

www.era.int